Got the result we wanted. Now its a short week so we quickly move on to next week.
Couple forced changes likely with McKay (likely concussion) and Kemp (likely achilles) outs.
3 options to replace from what i can tell. Young - AFL conditioned, can play back/forward/ruck.....albeit none very well on recent form. Pittonet - AFL conditioned, is he fit? Just come back from injury but VFL has a bye this week so hasn't played a game. Bring him straight back and allow TDK to rest forward? Lemmey - NOT AFL conditioned. Perhaps the biggest upside. Do we give him a crack while we can or do we leave him in the 2's until he demands a spot.....or he is the last one standing.
OK, so its a bit early to be doing part 3, usually its around R6 or R7, but i think we are at a good point to really give this some thought given how the season has started. I expect to get a lot more variation in this one.
Carlton only had to give up a third-round pick to land Gold Coast captain Tara Bohanna as the Suns continued to focus on accruing more points for their academy players in next week’s draft.
The Blues landed a much-needed forward target along with the Suns’ pick 56, in exchange for just their no. 41 selection in the first AFLW trade completed since Saturday.
Bohanna, 29, joined Gold Coast as a mature-age recruit ahead of the first 2022 season, and was named captain after only 10 games.
The key forward booted 45 goals in 42 games, including a bag of four in the losing elimination final against Sydney in 2023.
OK, well its time for our latest installment of this and this may be the most difficult one for the year.
Assume all players are fit unless mentioned otherwise above.
Plenty of kids showing some talent coming through of late, and plenty of players on the injury list who would probably walk back in. So who do you keep out?
Looking at some other stats on our big 3 forwards... Charlie - Harry - TDK 29 - 24 - 7 - Goals 18 - 12 - 8 - Behinds 50 - 45 - 16 - Shots on goal 3 - 9 - 1 - Complete misses 58% - 53% - 44% - Goal accuracy % (from total shots on goal, including misses)
28 - 29 - 10 - Marks inside 50.
49 - 43 - 73 - Targets leading to shots on goal (%) 31 - 29 - 33 - Targets leading to goal (%) 29 - 35 - 48 - Targets leading to marks inside 50 (%)
OK, so thats the facts. What does it all mean.
Lets make a couple observations - Charlie is our best shot on goal. Harry has improved remarkably, but still misses completely more than he should, but even with those misses, is more likely than TDK to kick a goal once he has a shot. - Despite being targetted less, we are more likely to get a shot at goal, an actual goal and a mark inside 50, when we target TDK. This should be common sense really. Everyone knows we go to Harry and Charlie the most, so they get the best defenders and they get the 3rd man in helping out as well. So, by default, TDK (and everyone else in the team) get lesser defenders and less attention paid to them.
So, my take home point is this. SPREAD THE LOAD! Our scoring will be better if we learn to target other players.
Stop directing the ball to Harry and Charlie constantly and try and use some other forwards more often. We have been lacking a 3rd tall most of the year (remembering TDK playing #1 ruck first half of the year) and not having Jack Silvagni available....and not having Jack Martin available much either. I'd really like to see us target this area ASAP or shoehorn someone into this role ASAP - Kemp, McGovern, Marchbank is 1 too many '3rd talls' to play down back. Try one up forward??
If there is enough interest, i might do some comparisons of other forwards (teams?) and see how we compare.
